Sep 28, 2011

“Indeed, it is the very purpose of this United Nations. So every nation represented here today can take pride in the innocent lives we saved and in helping Libyans reclaim their country. It was the right thing to do.”

Photo by The Ugly Truth

"Libya is a lesson in what the international community can achieve when we stand together as one," said President Obama.

The main town of the Tawergha region, Tawergha itself (aka Tawargha, Tawurgha. Arabic: تاورغاء), was a town of an estimated 31,250 people (United Nations Environment Program, 2005). It has been emptied of its entire population: its people having either been killed or fled. The town of Tawergha lies about 30-40 miles south of Misrata/Misurata, along the western coast of the Gulf of Sirte. Areas of Misrata occupied by the Tawargha have also been ethnically cleansed.

Rebels in Tawarga, Libya Maj 2011

Mahmoud Jibril, the NTC, rubber-stamped the wiping of the town off the map at the Misrata town hall:“Regarding Tawergha, my own viewpoint is that nobody has the right to interfere in this matter except the people of Misrata.”

“This matter can’t be tackled through theories and textbook examples of national reconciliation like those in South Africa, Ireland and Eastern Europe,” he added as the crowd cheered with chants of “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is greatest.”

The WSJ goes on to report:

Now, rebels have been torching homes in the abandoned city 25 miles to the south. The Wall Street Journal has witnessed the burning of more than a dozen homes in the city Col. Gadhafi once lavished with money and investment. On the gates of many vandalized homes in the country’s only coastal city dominated by dark-skinned people, light-skinned rebels scrawled the words “slaves” and “negroes.”

“We are setting it on fire to prevent anyone from living here again,” said one rebel fighter as flames engulfed several loyalist homes.

Andrew Gillighan is a serious reporter and he even mentions the racial context:

And as so often in Libya, there is also a racist undercurrent. Many Tawargas, though neither immigrants nor Gaddafi’s much-ballyhooed African mercenaries, are descended from slaves[?], and are darker than most Libyans.

Along the road that leads into Tawargha, the Misurata Brigade has painted a slogan. It says, “the brigade for purging slaves [and] black skin.”

Amnesty has reported on the allegations ‘that members of the Tawargha tribe’ have fled their homes and:

Tens of thousands are now living in different parts of Libya – unable to return home as relations between the people of Misratah and Tawargha remain particularly tense. Residents of makeshift camps near Tripoli, where displaced people from Tawargha are sheltering, told Amnesty they would not go outside for fear of arrest. They told how relatives and others from the Tawargha tribe had been arrested from checkpoints and even hospitals in Tripoli.

On 29 August, Amnesty delegates saw a Tawargha patient at the Tripoli Central Hospital being taken by three men, one of them armed, for “questioning in Misratah”. The men had no arrest warrant. Amnesty was also told that at least two other Tawargha men had vanished after being taken for questioning from Tripoli hospitals…

Even in the camps, the Tawarghas are not safe. Towards the end of last month, a group of armed men drove into the camp and arrested about 14 men. Amnesty spoke to some of their relatives; none knew of their fate or whereabouts. Another woman at the camp said her husband has been missing since he left the camp to run an errand in central Tripoli, about a week ago. She fears he might be have been detained.

Tawergha who fled to refugee camps have been chased down by rebel groups, taken away and disappeared. There are credible reports of Tawerghans being raped, disappearing and being killed. Tawerghans have even been witnessed being dragged out of hospitals in Tripoli to unknown fates.

The local rebel commander Ibrahim al-Halbous, said he was going to wipe the town off the map.

LAST REPORT FROM TWARGHA

The empty hallways echo with the sound of a slamming door as gusts of wind blow through the abandoned apartments. On the walls outside, the newly scrawled graffiti reads: "Traitors go to hell." Inside, the rooms smell of death.

The new apartment blocks are all empty, their rooms ransacked. Bookcases are upturned and television sets smashed. Animal droppings are dotted on pulled up carpets and a film of dust from the surrounding desert is beginning to build up. In some of the apartments, military uniforms lie discarded on the floor. But in other rooms there are school exercise books and toys from the families who had lived there.

A small flock of sheep wander amid the burned-out cars in the deserted parking area, joined by a pair of goats and a solitary hen, presumably livestock abandoned when the city's residents made their escape as the vengeful rebels approached.

Outside one of the apartment blocks, a group of young men from Misrata loll on cushions.

Many of the rebels discussed their dislike for the people of Tawargha in racial terms. Bin Nasser said: "Their area is not here. They are not originally from here, they are from the south and they can go somewhere in the south. They caused me to hate all black people."

Miftah, a rebel commander from Misrata, said: "Libya is big. They can go to Sabha, Jubra, anywhere."

Rebels in Libya have good bosses.

NATO Genocide in Black Libyan Town of Tawerga

Racism lies at the heart of many of the NATO campaigns, including in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq where innocents are slaughtered in a way that simply would not be accepted if the victims were white.

NATO’s chief weapon in the Libyan conflict has been and continues to be, not Brimstone or Paveway bombs, Tornados, Typhoons or Tomahawk cruise missiles - but racism.

And like President Obama said: " Libya is a lesson in what the international community can achieve